It's hot out and I'm feeling both lazy AND cranky and have felt that way since I got up this morning. In a sour mood, the last thing I felt like was a sparkly Rishi Kapoor in masala-fest Hum Kisi Se Kum Nahin, which has been sitting and waiting for me to watch it all week. I watched about 15 minutes and knew I wasn't in the right mood to enjoy things like a belt stuffed full of diamonds and a henchman with a beard who is not Mac Mohan. So, instead, I remembered Mr. and Mrs. Iyer sitting in a pile of DVDs borrowed from dangermousie and put it in expecting nothing - just something slow moving for my slow moving brain.

Wow.

Konkona Sen Sharma is Mrs. Iyer, a woman traveling home to Calcutta with her baby after a visit to her parent's house. Her family is high caste and very traditional. When her parents drop her off at the bus station, they ask an aquaintence, a young man ("Raja" played by super-handsome Rahul Bose) to watch out for her on the journey. Raja agrees as he is a wild life photographer and Konkona's father is a big wig on the forest board or something.

Raja is a bachelor and has little patience for babies and the time and effort they require. He does what he can to help Mrs. Iyer, but he really is annoyed. They settle in for the bus ride and we get a long and lovely stretch of character developement of all the people on the bus. The camera settles on everyone. These are the kinds of scenes we don't find in Western film anymore. Nobody has the patience. They are handled beautifully here, though, conveying the sense that happens on any long trip where you become familiar with the other people on the bus or plane.

The action picks up when the bus travels through an area rife with religious violence. A group of Hindus is running about looking for Muslims to kill. Well, "Raja" turns out to be Muslim! Mrs. Iyer is shocked at first, but when push comes to shove, she lends him her name to save his life and the rebels pass him over as Mr. Iyer. That act ties them together. Before this, I think he would have been happy to ditch them as soon as he could, but taking the name of her husband, he is more responsible. For one thing, all the people on the bus now think they are married. How could he leave her after that?

Due to the violence there is a curfew and they are unable to the leave the area. Instead, they end up bunking together in a forrest hut and all of Mrs. Iyer's frustrations with the situations rise to the surface as anger directed at Raja. He eats meat! He smokes! He wants to sleep in her room! She feels sorry after a nice rest and goes to apologize. He graciously accepts and his heart melts. From then on, they fall more and more into their roles as Mr. and Mrs. Iyer until he has to send her back home to Calcutta.

Their last train ride is so sweet and sad. She has him tell her about where he's going next and asks if he's going to be alone. He says, "Unless you come with me." And she looks so sad. My heart broke. Of course, she cannot join him and at the end he has to give up her name and take his own back.

Mr. and Mrs. Iyer is slow-moving, for sure, but in an enjoyable way. The film is built of little moments. The opening act that takes place on the bus was so well done. Everything unfolds in a leisurely way making sure that we familiarized ourselves with the characters so that we would care about what happened to them. The little moments of quiet when Raja would go out and take pictures were also nice. And, of course, the growing relationship between Konkona and Rahul captured in small bits - the stories they make up for themselves told to strangers and then retold to each other.

While most of what I'd read about the film before seeing it focused on Mrs. Iyer learning that Muslims are People Too (TM), which is one of the reasons I wasn't too anxious to watch as that theme has been done and done again, I was surprised at the growth in Rahul's character. We see Raja go from a bachelor who finds babies and women a bother to a man who willingly and genuinely acts as a husband and goes out of his way to care for Mrs. Iyer and her son. There is one scene in particular where some of the thugs are chasing after a man in the woods and Rahul seems ready to get in between them to try and stop them from killing somebody else, but instead he stays to protect Konkona and her baby and finds that he's worth more helping Konkona fend off nightmares and fear than in throwing his life away doing something "heroic."

So, while Mrs. Iyer does, in fact, learn that You Can't Judge A Book By Its Cover (TM), what interested me more was her love story - and no, not just because she had great chemistry with Rahul. We learn enough backstory to assume that her match with Mr. Iyer was not a love match. She finished her degree and her parents got her married and now she lives with her in-laws. She has a son, but not much love in her life. Maybe she thought love was not for people like her or that it was only something in the movies (I feel like this, too - life, please send me Rahul Bose. Thank you.) To watch her blossom with passion and love is really remarkable and I don't have to tell you that Konkona Sen Sharma has big, expressive eyes and uses them to great effect here.

The end was bittersweet. I like to think that Mrs. Iyer didn't let her emotional awakening to go waste and went on to do something in the world. Maybe she decides to teach or write. I feel more sorry for Raja, who must go off alone. I wonder what happened with him. Did he forget her? Did she awaken his heart enough for him to get married and start his own family?



I wish I had more screencaps to share, but I was too lazy (IT'S SO HOT) to go back and take them.